In many instances, utility meters that measure utility service consumption are still read by hand, which can be costly, inefficient and error-prone. In some instances, utility providers desire to electronically communicate with the meters for numerous purposes including scheduling disconnection or connection of utility services to the metered loads, automatic meter reading (AMR), load shedding and load control, automatic distribution and smart-grid applications, outage reporting, providing additional services such as Internet, video, and audio, etc. In many of these instances, the meters must be configured to communicate with one or more computing devices through a communications network, which can be wired, wireless or a combination of wired and wireless, as known to one of ordinary skill in the art. These enhanced meter functions often require intelligence built into the meter. Therefore, what is desired is a meter configured to have capabilities beyond that of mere measurement of utility service consumption.